Cruiser, Road Tales

Memphis Cruise: Map, Stats, and Photos

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Map

Here is the map for the Memphis Cruise. Click on the routes on the map to navigate to the trip report for that day.

hc_mc_map

Retrospective Note (2016): Back in 1997, Apple Maps and Google Maps didn’t exist yet. Consequently, the map is tiny and based on a screen shot of a MapQuest map.

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Statistics

Total number of days: 6
Total miles: 1,807
Shortest Day: 62.9 miles (Day 4 – Around Memphis)
Longest Day: 400 miles (Day 6 – Corydon, IN to Ann Arbor, MI)
Average Miles/Day: 301.2/day
Number of States/Provinces visited: 5 (MI, OH, KY, TN, IN)
Average Miles per Gallon: 43.12

Photos

Vanity shot of Ghost and the Cruiser ready to take off for Memphis, TN. Michelle took the photo.
Blatently Poser-fied vanity shot of Ghost and the Cruiser ready to take off for Memphis, TN. Michelle took the photo.
A crappy photo of the bridge at Aberdeen. That’s Maysville, KY on the other side of the river. A railroad freight mainline runs on the other side of the river, so I had company all night. This photo sucks because I used a disposable camera. After the film was developed, I dropped the photos (and my Newton 120 PDA) off the Bike on I-96 east of Grand Rapids, MI. Several cars/trucks ran over the photos (and my Newton) before I could retrieve them. Instead of scanning the negatives to a Photo-CD, I scanned the abused photos on a flatbed scanner at a local Kinkos Copies. Again, this is why this photo sucks.
I move back to catch the Cruiser in a shot. Note that this was before I did the wake-up call on the Cruiser, so it still had the stock mufflers.
This shot is of one of the resevoirs in the Burgess Falls State Natural Area. The road I was on would eventually cross this lake at the bridge in the distance.
The Pyramid is where I saw the exhibit of Titanic aritifacts. This photo sucks because I used a disposable camera. After the film was developed, I dropped the photos (and my Newton 120 PDA) off the bike on I-96 east of Grand Rapids, MI. Several cars/trucks ran over the photos (and my Newton) before I could retrieve them. Instead of scanning the negatives to a Photo-CD, I scanned the abused photos on a flatbed scanner at a local Kinkos Copies. Again, this is why this photo sucks.
A shot of the I-40 bridge crossing the Mississippi River. This photo sucks because I used a disposable camera. After the film was developed, I dropped the photos (and my Newton 120 PDA) off the bike on I-96 east of Grand Rapids, MI. Several cars/trucks ran over the photos (and my Newton) before I could retrieve them. Instead of scanning the negatives to a Photo-CD, I scanned the abused photos on a flatbed scanner at a local Kinkos Copies. Again, this is why this photo sucks.
Commerce is alive and well on the river. This photo sucks because I used a disposable camera. After the film was developed, I dropped the photos (and my Newton 120 PDA) off the bike on I-96 east of Grand Rapids, MI. Several cars/trucks ran over the photos (and my Newton) before I could retrieve them. Instead of scanning the negatives to a Photo-CD, I scanned the abused photos on a flatbed scanner at a local Kinkos Copies. Again, this is why this photo sucks.
Early in the afternoon, I took a drive past Graceland, home of the rock-&-roll God Elvis Presley. The mansion looked like, well, a mansion. If it weren’t for all the supporting fixtures of tourist exploitation across the street, you’d assume that this spread belonged to Mary Tyler Moore’s plastic surgeon (or some other rich and mundane individual). I turned around, and snapped a single picture as I drove back downtown. Not bad for 20+ MPH on a motorcycle in heavy traffic! This photo sucks because I used a disposable camera. After the film was developed, I dropped the photos (and my Newton 120 PDA) off the bike on I-96 east of Grand Rapids, MI. Several cars/trucks ran over the photos (and my Newton) before I could retrieve them. Instead of scanning the negatives to a Photo-CD, I scanned the abused photos on a flatbed scanner at a local Kinkos Copies. Again, this is why this photo sucks.
Cruiser, Road Tales

Memphis Cruise Preview

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Earlier today, I accepted a full-time position; a “real” job that will mark the demise of the consulting business that I’ve been operating for the last four years.

As fate would have it, my new employer won’t be ready for me to start until the morning of May 28th, so I have some time to waste. Seeing as next weekend is the Memorial Day holiday, I know that tons of riders will be moving on Washington D.C. (Rolling Thunder), and crowds are something I want to avoid.

After some consideration, I decided to visit a museum exhibit of R.M.S. Titanic artifacts in Memphis, TN. Sound weird? Hell, it’s something worth doing and it gets me out on the road. Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Author’s Retrospective (2016)

This trip marked a significant nexus in my life. I was getting divorced. To keep the house, I had to shut down my technical communications business and (as noted in the text above) get a job that provided a steady, predictable paycheck. The plan was that my soon-to-be-ex wife would move the first set of stuff out of the house while I was away and move in with her folks. 

At the time, I would have never guessed that this trip would be the watershed moment that released a serious passion for crossing the country on two wheels. At the beginning of this trip, the Cruiser had a mere 19,444 miles on it. I still have this Bike, and the odometer reads 148,116 miles. Between that and the 84,000+ on the Vector, I found one of my life’s primary sources of joy.

About the Trip Report Format

The trip reports that follow for this cruise are in letter form, as there were several individuals (e.g., Mother, wife, etc.) who were sure that I was going to die on the road. Consequently, I would write a daily email message and send it to those who needed to know that I was still alive and kicking. That’s why you may see side notes to my mother, father, wife, etc.

It’s worth noting that these trip reports were written on an Apple Newton and sent as email over not-always-convenient phone lines. For more details on this process, see the retrospective post Road Blogging Before the Internet was Ubiquitous.

Lessons in the art of motorcycle touring